Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Mandela: more earthly than heavenly

Masi Noor, a psychologist researching
forgiveness, considers the nature of Nelson
Mandela’s main achievement and argues that it is something to which we can all aspire.

Love your enemy? Easier said than done.Photo: World Economic Forum

Death unites
people. Mandela’s departure has certainly done so. In the wake of the storm of
the public messages, obituaries, tweets and blogs I wonder though, if something
profound may be missing and potentially trivialising of Mandela’s character and
legacy.

The dominant
theme is one of veneration. This is unsurprising given Mandela’s achievements.
But to canonise him as a super-human is to close the door to him as a source of
inspiration to us and in the realm of the small and the ordinary. History is
full of such deified Mandelas. Sometimes they are called Buddha, Jesus,
Einstein, Mary, Mohammed or Maslow. Whatever the name, they remain inaccessible
to most of us, so that their lifetime achievements eventually dissolve
into mystery. The possibility of emulation becomes extinct. This would be tragically counter-Mandelan.

By his own
admission, Mandela never had an epiphany moment. Instead, he was ordinary,
struggled to sustain romantic love and to find ways to remain human within Apartheid’s dehumanising context (and almost 30 years in prison). At times
he was angry, stubborn, fragile and unsuccessful in his pursuits of his academic
studies. At other times, he was a shrewd strategist who knew when to boycott,
when to use threat of militancy and when to offer personal forgiveness. And
sometimes he got all of them wrong. I’d suggest that this not only made him the
Mandela we idolise, but more importantly someone we can emulate.

Perhaps the
most important skill in Mandela’s behavioural repertoire was to remain embedded
in what is termed ‘Ubuntu’.
This is an ethic that originated in South Africa and serves as a reminder that my humanity is caught up in yours. Described in
Desmond
Tutu’s words, ‘”Ubuntu”
is not, “I think therefore I am.” It says rather: “I am a human because I
belong. I participate. I share.” In essence, I am only because you are’. When
we experience injustice, loss and trauma, there is a tendency in us to go
through a process of disconnection. We disconnect from the perpetrator, from
potential sources of social support and, importantly, from ourselves, our core
values and from the person we used to be. Ubuntu is the antidote to such
destructive disconnection. It encourages us to remain engaged.

Mandela practised Ubuntu to restore damaged relations. Seeking
a meeting with Margaret
Thatcher (who had considered the ANC a ‘terrorist organisation’),
only months after his release was a prime example. This was not only
illustration of skilful diplomacy but it also showed Mandela seeking common
ground and shared humanity rather than a fight. An even bigger effect of Ubuntu
on Mandela was shown in his ability to divert the strong draw towards civil war
and chaos in South Africa. After his release a measure of collective healing came through
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The
transaction of public honesty in return for amnesty, as painful as it
was, was consistent with his commitment to Ubuntu.

As a psychologist, I have studied the concept of forgiveness
in contexts of ethno-political violence over the last 10 years. I have found
that, as well as avoidance and revenge, forgiveness is often a very effective
strategy to deal with conflict and its legacy. Like the other strategies,
forgiveness offers opportunities and risks. Mandela was among the first statesmen in contemporary times who used forgiveness as a tool to bring to
light the impact of Apartheid and at the same time, to prevent future similar
collective catastrophes in South Africa. Such achievements are indeed
extraordinary and to manage this undoubtedly took great political skills.
But adoration of the accomplishments alone would only dim the light necessary
to see the person behind such achievements.

Amid the sadness of Mandela’s death, a source of
consolation for me has been that Mandela’s story has touched most people on this
planet. What makes a story powerful is
that we identify with its protagonist and somewhere secretly we want to become
that protagonist. This opens the opportunity that we can allimagine becoming and acting like Mandela. In my work I have met Mandela-like real people across
many conflict regions. They have transformed their desire for revenge into a reflective
search for something larger, they have analysed instead of making accusations,
they have looked beyond themselves, and they have returned to being human, just
as Mandela did and just as he would have liked them to do.

About the Salomons Centre

The Salomons Centre for Applied Psychology in Tunbridge Wells, England. We are part of the Canterbury Christ church University Department of Psychology, Politics and Sociology. We run training courses in Clinical Psychology and CBT and also practice improvement programmes for child and adolescent mental health services. On this site staff and trainees in the Department write about a wide range of issues related to applied psychology, psychological therapies, policy and health service development.